NEW HANOVER >> Although he did not come right out and say it, testimony by a groundwater expert hired by the proposed Gibraltar Rock Quarry suggested that mining would not release underground chemical contamination into surrounding wells and streams.
Louis Vittorino, a scientist with a company called EarthRes, was questioned for 21/2 hours by Gibraltar’s attorney Stephen Harris during a Feb. 4 zoning hearing regarding the fourth expansion of the proposed quarry known as GR-IV.
This particular parcel is about 18 acres north of Hoffmansville Road and adjacent to the former Good’s Oil site on Route 663.
The Good’s Oil site has been identified by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection as the source of contamination of area wells that necessitated the installation of a $2 million public water system three years ago.
Gibraltar paid $800,000 to purchase the GR-IV property from Tower Trust, whose trustees are Ethan and Carol Joy Good.
Since then, township officials have begun to question whether a quarry operation in GR IV would exacerbate the groundwater pollution at the neighboring Good’s Oil site and spread it to other wells and into Swamp Creek.
Gibraltar began to offer part of its answer to that question during the zoning hearing Thursday.
Vittorino is a hydro-geologist and was involved in drilling of wells and testing of geology and groundwater on the sites and analyzing the results.
The audience of about 15 at the hearing learned from Vittorino’s testimony that the quarry pit envisioned for GR-IV would be 140 feet shallower than the pit proposed for GR-I, the original quarry which is now just a state permit and vote of the board of supervisors away from digging.
And because the GR-IV pit would be shallower, Gibraltar now estimates its entire quarry operation will pump 168,163 fewer gallons of water per day than the 386,579 it had originally estimated – a reduction of more than 40 percent.
The 108,000 gallons of water pumped from the GR IV quarry pit each day would be about 70 rainwater and just under 30 percent groundwater, Vittorio testified.
Water pumped from the quarry pits would be directed to settling basins and from there into an unnamed tributary of Swamp Creek, according to Vittorino.
But perhaps the most important evidence Vittorio gave during the hearing was his analysis of the direction and volume of groundwater flow.
He said well tests results showed that because of the tilt and composition of the underground rock layers, groundwater from the Good’s Oil contamination is moving away from the proposed quarry pit, not toward it, and it is doing so very slowly.
Vittorino’s testimony did not seem to be complete when the zoning board adjourned the meeting at 9 p.m.
The next of what promises to be many more zoning hearings is scheduled for March 3.
